UICollectionView Custom Layout: the Ultimate Tutorial – Part 2

Welcome back to the “UICollectionView Custom Layouts: the Ultimate Tutorial” series. This is Part 2, where we will actually tackle the custom layout part. If you haven’t seen or done the first part, I strongly recommend you to take a look at it, as we will be using the UICollectionView we created there. Remember what we had at the end of Part 1, when we run the project without the custom layout, and what we would like to achieve?       A few words A few words before we start: I recommend you to have a look at Session 232 of … Continue reading UICollectionView Custom Layout: the Ultimate Tutorial – Part 2

UICollectionView Custom Layout: the Ultimate Tutorial – Part 1

I’m working every day with UICollectionViews and until recently never used a custom layout. I decided to take the plunge and learn how to create one when I had to deal with a complex layout on a UICollectionView and make my designer happy. So here is everything I learned (or everything you need to know — to start with) about custom layouts for UICollectionView. Let’s imagine that you have a “complex” design to integrate in a UICollectionView. And yes, you need a collectionView. When I say complex, I mean different types of cells, some of them will have a fixed … Continue reading UICollectionView Custom Layout: the Ultimate Tutorial – Part 1

How to create a Section Background in a UICollectionView in Swift

I recently faced a small challenge on a UICollectionView, the following screenshot illustrates pretty well the situation. In short: I needed to have a transparent background in a UICollectionView to be able to see through some sections, but I didn’t want to be able to see the background in between the cells on some others. Basically, I needed to be able to set different background colors per section. Well, needless to say that functionality doesn’t exist by default on iOS. Luckily for me I found this great article: Changing the section background color in a UICollectionView from Eric Chapman who … Continue reading How to create a Section Background in a UICollectionView in Swift

Swift Tips #2: setBorder Extension

Happy New Year! This is my first post of 2016, so I would like to thank you all for reading my blog and to wish you a very Happy New Year. May this year be as bug free as possible in your apps as well as in your life! As a New Year gift, I’d like to share with you a little something that I’m using all the time: my setBorder Extension. It is the first member of my “Extensions essentials”. When I integrate a design or debug something, I want to see quickly where my elements are, so I … Continue reading Swift Tips #2: setBorder Extension

Simple UICollectionView pagination with API and Realm database

If you’re using Realm database and a REST API, you may have encountered a pagination issue at some point. That’s what happened in the project I’m working on. Something was wrong with the pagination and I kept adding variables and ifs until I couldn’t remember what was doing what. Then I realized I needed a clean slate, and I created this little project. So, this is a mockup to test a minimum viable pagination and preloading of data from a REST API to feed a UITableView or UICollectionView, using Realm.io database. Just to make things clear, I am not introducing pagination into … Continue reading Simple UICollectionView pagination with API and Realm database